Juvenile Delinquency and Economic Trend

Abstract

F LUCTUATIONS in the number of cases brought into Juvenile Court from year to year are of interest to the general public as well as to professional workers in this field and are interpreted in various ways, the interpretation frequently depending upon the prejudices or purposes of the observer. Thus, a public official may call attention to a decrease in the incidence of delinquency as evidence of the efficiency of his administration. Advocates of a particular delinquency prevention program are apt to cite such statistics as proof of the benefit of their particular program. Similarly, the opponents of a particular official or of a particular preventive program are quick to quote rising delinquency figures in support of their contention. It happens that in many American communities there was a marked decline in the incidence of juvenile court cases between the years I929 and I934. As a result, in many cities individuals or agencies claimed credit for decreasing delinquency by virtue of this or that local policy or activity. Reports and publicity of this kind, moreover, frequently emphasized the thought that the decrease in delinquency was accomplished in spite of the increasing unemployment and economic distress of the depression. In other words, it was, and is today, generally taken for granted that juvenile delinquency increases in periods of depression and decreases in periods of prosperity. At the present time when there is so much discussion as to the effect of the war upon delinquency the interpretation of delinquency trends is strongly influenced by the popular belief that in times of increased employment and business activity a decrease in delinquency would ordinarily take place. So fixed is this opinion in the minds, not only of the general public, but of professional workers as well, that relatively little attention has been paid to the actual data of the past decade, and various attempts have been made to explain away data which point to a contrary conclusion. Yet, an understanding of the relationship between juvenile delinquency and economic trend is of great importance to Probation Officers and others concerned with the problem of delinquency, not only for purposes of administrative planning and because of its significance in attempts to evaluate various techniques and policies, but also because it throws a unique light upon certain causal factors which may not have been fully appreciated heretofore. Thus, whereas the deleterious effects of poverty and privation have been widely emphasized as causal factors, it has apparently not been sufficiently recognized that prosperity and economic expansion also involve certain factors that play an important role in the causation of delinquency.